


best case scenario (it's you and me in the end)

by srmiller



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bellarke, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 20:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13620885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/srmiller/pseuds/srmiller
Summary: Clarke bribes Bellamy with tacos and Ken Burns in order to get him to go to a party at Octavia's but less than an hour later they're sneaking back to her apartment where one thing leads to another (Clarke and Bellamy are friends! Bellamy likes Clarke! Clarke likes Bellamy! They kiss!)





	best case scenario (it's you and me in the end)

“Please don’t make me socialize.”

Clarke rolled her eyes as she fixed her eyeshadow in the bathroom mirror. “It’s your sister’s birthday, you have to socialize.”

Bellamy appeared to her right, leaning against the doorway. “I should have raised her to be an introvert.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“It should be.”

“If you stay for an hour.”

His interest peaked, Bellamy stood up. “If I stay for an hour what?”

“We can leave.”

“You’re serious?”

“Octavia and I are friendly enough, but we mostly just know each other through you.” Clarke swiped red across her lips and studied the affect before nodding approval to herself. “I was invited because it would have been rude not to. I’ll know a few people there like Lincoln, but you’re the main reason I’m going.”

He looked pleased with himself. “I am?”

“Don’t be so surprised. We are friends.”

“Yeah, still reeling from that revelation.” Clarke passed by Bellamy in the doorway, nearly brushing up against him in a way which made too many nerves in her system buzz. “So, what do I get for going to my sister’s 21st birthday party which is sure to be a wild and uncivilized affair?”

“You’re repeating yourself,” Clarke pointed out as she started looking for her purse because he’d been saying the exact same thing all day in an attempt to get out of the party.

“Kitchen table,” Bellamy told her as he messed with something on his phone. “Miller’s coming to the party.”

Clarke paused. “Why would Miller be coming?”

“Monty.”

“Ah,” Clarke smiled. “Good for him.”

Bellamy slipped his phone into his pocket. “Making fun of him will help make a good portion of that hour pass by more quickly.”

“Be nice,” Clarke urged as she checked her purse for her phone and wallet. “When was the last time he even had a crush?”

Bellamy seemed to seriously consider the question as they walked out of the apartment and headed towards the elevator. “I don’t know if he’s ever had one? Which makes it more fun for me.”

“You’re terrible.”

“And yet still your friend.”

“I’m starting to rethink it.”

“Too late you’re stuck with me.” He leaned against the back of the elevator as she pushed the button for the lobby. “And what?”

Clarke was briefly distracted by the elevator filling up with a distinctly male scent. Had Bellamy put on aftershave before coming over? “What what?”

“If stay for an hour what do I get?”

Focusing on the floor indicator which counted down to the second floor, then first. “If you stay for an hour than we’ll buy a bag full of tacos, come back here, and watch the new Ken Burns.”

Bellamy narrowed his eyes at Clarke. “The new Ken Burns isn’t on Netflix yet.”

“I have it,” Clarke announced airily as she stepped off the elevator.

“What do you mean you have it?”

“My mom sent it to me.”

“Why would Abby send you a ten hour documentary on the Vietnam war?”

“Apparently I talk about historical documentaries a lot.” Which was entirely Bellamy’s fault, but she hadn’t been about to correct her mother with regards to that.

_‘Yeah Mom, I know I sound super smart whenever I talk about Ken Burns but it’s mostly because I’m super into my friend and he likes them, so what better way to spend a weekend then sitting with him on my couch?’_

The evening was cool but thankfully the wind from earlier had died down. “She asked if I’d seen that one yet and I said no because it wasn’t online anywhere. Three days later it’s in my mail. Also, it still weirds me out you call my mother by her first name.”

“What do you want me to call her? Congresswoman Griffin?”

“Your mother.”

“Which would be weird since I’ve met _your mother_ five times and four of those times she insisted I call her Abby.”

“Do you want the tacos and the documentary, or not?”

“Yes. Thank your mother for me.”

Clarke grinned as they stepped outside into the cold and the wet as rain drizzled from the night sky. “And they say bribing doesn’t lead to anything.”

 

The music was too loud for Bellamy, but there was a copious amount of alcohol which helped. If it wasn’t his sister’s birthday party, he’d have ditched fifteen minutes after arriving.

But it was his sister’s birthday and Clarke had bribed with a quiet rest of the evening so he was there, two shots and one drink in, with Clarke across the room flirting with some girl who looked vaguely familiar to him.

“You could just ask her out, you know.”

Bellamy didn’t even bother to look at Miller when his best friend stood next to him. “Find Monty yet?”

Miller snorted. “Yeah, and I asked him out like a fucking adult and he said yes because he is also an adult.”

He looked at Miller as if it would somehow confirm what he was saying and he looked disturbingly happy and content, the latter of which he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen on his friend’s face before. “Huh.”

“I know,” Miller replied dryly. “It’s a shockingly easy concept, you should try it.”

Bellamy resisted the urge to flip him off. “I’ll think about it.”

“You’re such an idiot.” And with that Miller walked away.

Glaring at his retreating back, Bellamy saw Clarke walk over towards him, dropping her empty cup in one of the many trashcans scattered about the place. “What was that about?”

Bellamy looked down and it was easy enough to give her an answer which wasn’t a lie. “Miller asked Monty out.”

Clarke grinned, “I’m so happy. Monty’s been debating ‘should I ask him out and risk our friendship or stay platonic’ so it’s nice Miller took the initiative.”

“How much time do I have before we can leave?”

“Are you not having any fun?” she asked, seemingly surprised. “I figured once you got here you’d at least enjoy yourself a little. What happened to teasing Miller about his crush?”

“One, Miller asked his crush out, taking all the wind out of my sails. Two, I’m getting too old for parties like this.”

Clarke dramatically rolled her eyes. “You’re 26.”

“But an old 26,” he argued.

Clarke pulled out her phone to check the time. “We can go now if you want, it’s close enough to the hour mark. You just have to pay for the tacos for tapping out early.”

Bellamy looked back to where the familiar looking girl had been a few moments ago. “You don’t have to go if you’re having fun. The, uh, girl you were talking to seem cool.”

“Niylah?” Clarke asked and Bellamy nodded. “She is cool. She was someone I knew after Fin. The same way Raven knew you after Fin.”

“Ah.”

“That better not be judgement I hear in your voice.”

“It’s not, it’s just me processing. If you’re good to go, I’ll buy the tacos and you can drive.”

“Cool. Let’s just find Octavia and say bye.”

“Nope,” he set his cup on the closet flat surface before grabbing Clarke’s hand to lead her towards the door. He heard her laugh behind him.

“You don’t want to wish your sister happy birthday?”

“Already did that. I gave O her present earlier, and if we tell her we’re leaving she’ll pout and call me a loser.”

Clarke laughed again and caught up to him but didn’t let go of his hand, instead she bumped her shoulder against his so their arms touched the entire way to the car. “We should have at least stolen some beer.”

Bellamy stopped and looked back at the house, intrigued about the idea. “What would the risk be of going back in there?”

“High,” she tugged on his hand. “And I want tacos.”

“That’s why you came up to me,” he realized. “You wanted to go.”

She looked a little embarrassed as she got into the driver’s seat. “I know you and Raven are cool, but I never mastered the art of being chill after a one night stand. I think Niylah was going to ask me out.”

He knew he should be pleased Clarke didn’t want to date Niylah, but fuck it, he was. “So you ran and used me as your cover.”

“Yep,” she agreed as she pulled out onto the street.

“Glad I could be of service.”

“Me too,” she started the car and turned the music down. “Do you want to call ahead and make an order to go so we don’t have to hang around?”

“Are you desperate to get me alone or something?” he asked as he pulled out his phone and started searching for the late night Mexican food place they went to every few weeks. “Because if you’re going to seduce me, Ken Burns and tacos isn’t the worst way to go about it.”

Clarke rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything as Bellamy put the phone to his ear and placed their order.

“It’ll be 20 minutes, want to pay for beer in the meantime? The grocery store will be open for another hour.”

“Sure.”

 

“It’s run into exes night,” Bellamy murmured.

“Huh?” Clarke asked, distracted by reading the very involved description of a local microbrew. Who needed that many adjectives to describe a beer?

“Roma’s here.”

Clarke couldn’t help but grin when she looked up at him. “From your wild days?”

“I need you to contain yourself.”

“You were such an asshole back then,” Clarke commented, but there was no heat behind it as she looked up and down the aisle. “Where is she?”

“I just saw her walk past the aisle,” he said, keeping his head down as if that would somehow disguise his identity.

“Do we need to make a quick escape? Will she expect a threesome? Should I hide?”

“Okay, you’re very funny, grab something and let’s go.”

Clarke grabbed the beer she’d been reading, too intrigued by the descriptor ‘tastes as good as the mountain air feels.’ What could that even mean?

Bellamy’s phone vibrated and when he pulled it out, she couldn’t help poking him some more. “Is that…I was going to make fun of you, but I don’t know the names of any of your other one-night stands. Are they just saved as Girl 1 and Girl 2 in your phone?”

“I didn’t save any of their numbers, Clarke. That’s why it’s called a one-night stand.”

“See, that’s why you’re better at this than me. It’s been more than a year since I hooked up with Niylah and I still have her in my phone under her first and last name.”

Bellamy stared at her for a full second before shaking his head with a smile. “You’re adorable.”

Clarke set the case of beer on the conveyer belt. “Who did text you?”

“Octavia,” he showed her the text, half of it emojis. “Yelling at me for ditching.”

“You can tell her it was my idea.”

“She wouldn’t believe it,” he argued, putting his phone back in his pocket. “It’s fine, she’ll get over it.”

“You did good with her you know,” Clarke commented as she kept an eye out for Roma. She didn’t know what she’d do if she saw Bellamy’s former flame, but Clarke didn’t want to get caught by surprise. “She’s a happy, healthy, more or less well-rounded individual.”

“More or less?”

“She wants to fight people more than the average person. What did you tell her?”

“That I had a better offer.”

“Aw.”

“I’m talking about Ken Burns,” he teased as he paid for the beer. When they walked out he saw Roma’s car still in the parking lot. “You shouldn’t feel bad for not being good at one night stands.”

Clarke looked over the roof of the car at Bellamy, surprised by the sincerity in his voice. “I shouldn’t?”

“If you’re not built for it, you’re not built for it.”

“Why did you stop?”

He seemed to consider her for a moment before shrugging. “Turns out I’m not built for it either.”

 

“Does not wanting to sleep with different people mean you want to start sleeping with the same person?”

“That’s a weird way to ask if I want to be in a relationship,” Bellamy commented as he started pulling tacos and sauce from the bag and putting them on the counter.

Clarke stuck the beer in the fridge but pulled out two bottle before closing it with her foot. “Do you?”

He leaned against the counter and faced her, crossing his arms and ankles. “Do I want to be in a relationship? Yeah.”

She put one beer next to him and grabbed the bottle opener off the front of the fridge to open her own. “What changed your mind? I thought you were having fun going out and meeting girls.”

“I was,” he accepted the bottle opener she held out to him and to Clarke it seemed like he was paying the bottle more attention than was strictly need to open it. “But it was mostly because I hadn’t gotten a chance to before. I was making up for lost time more than anything else, all those wild nights I didn’t get when I was high school because I had to take care of O.”

The look she gave him was probably as disbelieving as she felt, “So, it stopped being fun?”

“Clarke…”

“I’m curious,” she persuaded, leaning against the counter across from him. “From one day to the next you stopped buying girls drinks at bars.”

He looked at her sharply, as if surprised she’d noticed, but of course she’d noticed. It was pretty obvious when he stopped going home with strangers and started walking her home to make sure she got back safe. “I buy you drinks.”

Clarke grinned, a quick and teasing smile but felt it drop when she looked at him and realized he was being serious. “I don’t get it.”

He sighed as if he was begrudgingly participating in the conversation. “I stopped sleeping around because I came to the realization I had more fun hanging out with you than I did having sex with people I wouldn’t see again.”

Inside her ribs, her heart skipped and tumbled down a steep hill. “You’re going to have clarify that because I’m about to jump to conclusions.”

He shrugged, took a drink of his beer. “Go ahead. Jump.”

“Bellamy.”

The beer was put back down and he held up his hand as if in apology. “I didn’t mean to bring this up tonight.”

Clarke laughed but it was a nervous sound. “You didn’t, I did. Are you saying want to date me?”

The certainty with which he looked at her was nearly enough to knock Clarke over. “Yes.”

“Then why aren’t we?”

“I’m trying to get good enough.”

“Good enough to date me?” Clarke pushed off the counter and took a step towards him. “God, Bellamy, what makes you think you aren’t already?”

“I think you said it best earlier at the grocery store, I was an ass.”

“Just because you’re an ass doesn’t mean you’re not a good person.” Clarke walked forward but wasn’t sure what to do with her hands. “Even when we didn’t get along I knew I could call you if I needed anything and you’d come through.”

“You don’t have to make excuses for me.”

“I’m not!” Clarke made a frustrated sound because she couldn’t find the right words. To give herself a moment she grabbed his beer and took a drink before carefully setting it back down. “I’m not making excuses for you. You had a shitty childhood, and you had too much responsibility for someone that young and which means you couldn’t figure out who you were. So when Octavia leaves the house and goes to college of course you overcompensated, and you were an ass while you did it, but you were never a bad person Bellamy. I need you to believe that.”

He didn’t say anything, just stared at her as if he was trying to decide whether or not to believe her. “I was jealous of Niylah tonight.”

Clarke smiled, fond and reached out to untangled Bellamy’s arms so she could hold his hands. “I was kind of jealous of Roma too. She got parts of you I’ve never gotten to have.”

“You get parts of me no one else has ever had.”

“Fuck, Bellamy. Did you have that written on your arm or something?”

He shrugged but looked more certain of himself than he had a few minutes ago. “I’ve thought about having this conversation for a long time.”

It was too easy to picture Bellamy acting out this conversation in his head, worrying over tone and word choice. Where was the best place to have it and when. “Yeah? And how did it end?”

Bellamy looked down at their hands, the beginnings of a soft smile stretching across his face. “Best case scenario?”

“For you and me? Yeah, always best case.”

He grinned, wicked and amused and there was her Bellamy. “Usually it ended the morning after.”

Clarke laughed and dropped his hands to circle her arms loosely around his neck. “Let’s start with a kiss, huh?”

It started out slow, almost tentative, but Clarke wasn’t willing to dip her toes in the water, not when it came to Bellamy. She rose up on her toes so she was same height as him, pressed her body weight against him so he pressed against the counter and her body was flush against his.

His hands were on her ribs and when she dived deep into the kiss she could feel those long fingers tighten, the fabric of her shirt bunching beneath his hands. She imagined what his skin would feel like against hers as she slid her tongue along the seam of his lips, the heat of his mouth a mirror of the heat she felt rising within her veins.

He pushed her away and drew in a deep breath. “Fuck.”

She laughed because she was happy, because Bellamy was flushed and turned on. “I’ve thought about doing that for a long time,” she quipped.

“Yeah,” she saw his gaze dropped down to her lips then lower to her breasts which were tight against her t-shirt. She didn’t look down but she wouldn’t be surprised if he could see how turned on she was through her lacy bra and thin cotton shirt. “Me too.”

She thought he was going to kiss her again, there was enough want in his eyes she half expected him to pick her and put her on the counter. Instead, he tugged her forward and laid his forehead against hers. “Go on a date with me, Clarke.”

He such a sap, she thought fondly. “How about tacos and Ken Burns?”

Bellamy laughed and kissed her again like he couldn’t help but do it. He reached over and grabbed his beer, holding it out to her. “I’ll even buy you a drink.”

She grinned and took the beer. “Come on, Bellamy. We’ll make out between episodes because I know you’re not going to during the show.”

“You know me so well.”

 

The next morning Clarke groaned at the light peeking through the blinds and rolled over only to bump into a very solid, very warm body. At some point after the fifth episode she and Bellamy had ditched most of their clothes and then promptly passed out in bed.

“I can hear your smugness,” she mumbled into his pillow.

She heard him chuckle somewhere above her and sensed he’d probably been awake for a while now. “I’m not even saying anything.”

“And yet I can hear it.” She opened her eyes to see him watching her and he looked so happy and content, like there wasn’t anywhere else in the world he wanted to be. “What?”

He gestured with his free arm, she was practically laying on the other one, to the two of them in bed together. “With us, it’s always the best case scenario.”


End file.
